Out of ideas Please Help

ok her it goes. Yesterday a friend and I replaced the lower intake gasket and valve gaskets to take care of a coolant leak. We did that with out a problem. got everything back together and started it up. was missing horrible but eventually smoothed out and was starting fine. had a little bit of a ruff idle and a rotten egg smell. started looking at the exhaust because of the smell and notice one of the cadilitics ( not sure of spelling) was bright red. friend being a mechanic told me to take it to the muffler shop to have them take it it. Called them everything was looking alright. Started heading down the high way to the muffler shop to get exhaust taken care of and the truck wouldn't speed up but the rpm's would rise. then i noticed the oil pressure gauge had a real slight flutter to to it all of the sudden. Next thing I knew the thing just died. Pulled it to the shoulder and friend towed me to his house. The thing cranks just fine but won't start. then we did this.
1: Checked to make sure it was getting fuel. It was and pressure was good.
2: Rechecked everything to make sure we had everything plugged back in.
nothign unplugged
3: Pulled a plug ( brand new changed at same time) and checked for spark
We have spark
4: Checked for compression since it is acting like there is none
blowing fingure out of the hole when cranking finger wet with fuel

So I have spark, Have compression and have fuel. No check engine light comming on or anything. Hooked up buddies tester to plug and cranked throwing out no codes on the tester.

So now he is out of ideas, me not being very knowledgeable about engines have no clue. going to be checking the timing chain to make sure it isn't broke after work but he says if it was there would be no compression to blow his fingure out of the spark plug hole. Any ideads anyone please help. It is a 2000 Ford Explorer 4.0l v6 x series.

Thank you in advance for any ideas or help you all can give me.

Welcome to the forum!

A catalytic converter glowing bright red would indicate a very rich air/fuel mixture, causing the converter to overheat trying to convert all the unburned fuel to water. Your friend should NOT have suggested you drive the vehicle in this condition, but instead should have suggested you check the ordering of the spark plug wires to see which ones you had going to the wrong plugs. If those are definitely correct, then make sure the MAF sensor is plugged in and all the air intake tubing is correct and securely attached. If that's good, then check for vacuum leaks.

There's a good chance that driving it with the rich condition caused the converter to melt internally, plugging the exhaust. Try disconnecting the exhaust from the manifold collector and see if the truck will start.

-Rod

Thank will try that when I go over to where it is at thank you for the help. Will let you know if that fix's the problem or if I need more help.